


Not Thou But I

by prairiecrow



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Friendship, Lovecraftian, M/M, Poetry, Sacrifice, Secrets Revealed, Telepathic Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-27
Updated: 2011-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:01:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of an alien encounter, Miles O'Brien remembers absent friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Thou But I

**Author's Note:**

> Set in Season Three, pre-"Civil Defense".

Miles O’Brien refilled his glass with scotch for the third time. It was late, and Keiko and Molly were asleep, and his heart was full of sorrow and grief — and doubt. His quarters were darkened, which suited his mood just fine. The shadows reminded him that sometimes people kept secrets, and kept them well.

He was home. He was safe. Others were not so fortunate.

Today he’d lost a dear friend, along with someone he was starting to judge in a whole new light. He’d made his report to Commander Sisko but had left out certain elements of what had happened, telling his CO that he wanted to do a bit of research in order to better understand the puzzling way things had unfolded after the shuttlecraft had become trapped in a spatial anomaly. He had done that research, and now...

Now he didn’t know what to think.

A PADD lay in his hand, momentarily forgotten as he stared into space. The text of an ancient poem glowed on its face, letters of fire tracing the outlines of a mystery that had been right in front of him all the time. 

He drank, and remembered, and tried to understand.

*************************************

Julian’s eyes were almost flashing fire. “I’m ranking officer on this mission and it’s my decision! I’m beaming into the anomaly, and then the two of you are getting out of here as fast as you possibly can!”

Things had gone to hell surprisingly fast, but in deep space it sometimes worked out that way. They’d been on their way back from investigating an abandoned Cardassian research station — Miles, Julian, and the last person Miles would ever want to be trapped in a shuttlecraft with: Garak, the Cardassian spy. Sisko had sent him along to deal with the station’s security systems, and while Miles had to admit that Garak had done so with great skill and efficiency he still didn’t trust the slinky bastard as far as he could throw him. Cardies were all the same when you got right down to it: cold-blooded, cunning and about as trustworthy as rattlesnakes. 

He’d spent the entire trip out and most of the trip back needling Miles in subtle ways, and while Miles had done his best to ignore the jibes he’d occasionally snapped back, to Garak’s apparent delight. Julian had tried to defuse the situation but Garak had slithered right past him, and Julian, for whatever reason, didn’t try to pull rank. Perhaps he thought that Garak, not being in Starfleet, would just ignore him — or maybe it was simply indulgence. Not that it made much difference to Miles: the day he couldn’t hold his own against a Cardie’s sniping would be the day he turned in his combadge.

They’d been in the middle of a spirited argument about the morality of the occupation of Bajor, while Julian sipped Tarkalean tea and looked on with a combination of amusement and concern at the intensity of the debate, when the shuttlecraft’s sensors started to go mad. Immediately Miles and Julian had turned their full attention to their consoles, but it was too late: they were already caught in the grip of a subspace anomaly, being drawn inexorably into a field of esotrone energy that battered the shuttle’s shields mercilessly. It was all Miles could do to pilot the shuttle through it and keep the bloody thing in one functioning piece, correcting shield harmonics on the fly to prevent them from being torn to pieces.

It was a rough ride. But what waited on the other side was far, far worse.

At first Miles wasn’t sure what he was seeing through the viewscreen: his mind couldn’t wrap itself around the obscene shapes and impossible colors. Beside him he heard Julian gasp in artless horror; Garak never made a sound. Within seconds of looking at it Miles developed a sickening headache, but he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away — the thing exerted a hideous fascination. It was an anomaly, long tentacles twisting through subspace, but it was also a thing straight out of all the nightmares he’d ever forgotten.

The sight of it was nothing compared to the caress of what lurked inside.

To the day he died Miles would remember the touch of the anomaly aliens probing his mind. It was like being raped by razored darkness and the shrieks of a thousand damned souls, but through the agony of contact it was nevertheless clear what they wanted: someone to keep them company, to provide them with entertainment in their wanderings. Give them a body, a life (however brief) and a soul, and the other two would be let go. Refuse, and all three would be taken and condemned to the same fate. Evidently in their culture victim consent was very important; they had some kind of honor, twisted though it was, and a sense of reciprocity. They preferred that those who came to dwell in eternal darkness and misery came of their own free will. It sweetened the taste of the suffering. It prolonged the lives of the condemned.

 _One life for two: a bargain,_  they whispered, while Miles clutched the arms of his chair and struggled not to scream or to vomit. They were granting one half hour for the sacrifice to be beamed into the heart of their complex, where conditions existed that were fit for humanoid life.

Thirty minutes, to choose who would be condemned to hell.

As soon as Miles, Julian and Garak recovered enough to talk — three minutes — they immediately determined that the shuttle was being held in some kind of tractor beam, preventing them from trying to escape. They also decided that Miles himself was out of the running: his expertise was needed to pilot the shuttlecraft back through the esotrone field. That left Garak or Julian, and what a time for Julian’s damned idealism to grow a spine! 

“If you think I’m letting you beam over into that... that...” Words failed Miles as he stood glaring back at his friend, who looked at him with unflinching determination. They had all risen from their seats in the heat of argument; over Julian’s stiff shoulder he could see Garak watching them both intently, clearly waiting to see which way the contest would go. “No! I won’t let you do it!”

“You don’t have a choice,” Julian snapped. “You can’t go, and Garak’s not Starfleet — this isn’t his fight. Now, you’re going to transport me over and get the hell out of here, or so help me I’ll —”

Miles’ mouth was opening to cut Julian off and tell him to stop being such a damned hero when Garak took silent and decisive action. The Cardassian stepped forward and delivered a single sharp open handed blow to the side of Julian’s neck. Julian barely had time to widen his eyes in surprise before they dropped closed and he folded toward the floor; Garak caught him neatly under his upper arms, holding him partly supported against his stomach.

Miles let out a bellow of outrage. “ _What_  the —?”

“Saving you the trouble of another half-hour of arguing with him,” Garak replied, “which wouldn’t have done any good anyway.”

“You didn’t have to hit him!”

“If I hadn’t, we’d be here until the anomaly aliens decided to take us all.” He looked down at the young man hanging limply in his grip. “You weren’t going to let him go, were you?”

“I — no! Of course not!”

Garak nodded. “And neither was I. Much neater and less complicated this way. Now,” he said briskly, “if that particular blow works on Humans the same way it works on Cardassians he won’t be out for longer than twenty minutes, so we don’t have much time.”

Miles nodded. The thought of sending Julian out to face those... things... had made him sick, but he still couldn’t trust a Cardie. “Why’d you do it?”

Garak actually sighed. “He has a long life ahead of him, and an illustrious career. Compared with the fate of an old Cardassian tailor... well, there’s no contest, I’m sure you’ll agree. Now are you going to help me get him into the back or do I have to drag him there myself?”

“Tailor my ass,” Miles grumbled, coming to take Julian’s legs. Together they carried him to one of the bunks in the rear compartment and laid him down, then returned to the front compartment. At once Miles went to his console, careful not to let his eyes stray to the anomaly as he locked in transporter coordinates. When he glanced back Garak was standing ready, apparently relaxed. Only his eyes and his hands betrayed a tightness and tension. Miles couldn’t blame him: no matter how brave or foolhardy or just plain reptilian, nobody could face  _that_  without being scared shitless.

“Chief, would you mind doing me one last favour?” he asked lightly.

“I’ve never done you any favors,” Miles pointed out.

“True enough.  _A_  favour, then?”

Cautiously, Miles nodded. The guy was taking on a death sentence, and worse. What could one little promise hurt? It wasn’t like he even had to carry it out if he didn’t want to.

“No doubt he’ll have questions when he wakes up,” Garak said. “When you get back to the station, tell him that I’ve read that volume of Victorian poetry he loaned me, and that in particular I was taken with “Not Thou But I” by Philip Bourke Marston. That should enlighten him considerably.”

Miles scowled, waiting for more, but none was forthcoming. “That’s it?”

Garak made a little bow of his scaled chin. “That’s it,” he confirmed.

After a moment Miles shrugged. “Sure, I’ll tell him.”

“Thank you,” Garak said with formal courtesy and another slight bow. His gaze shifted to the anomaly and his blue eyes reflected its almost unbearable blackness. “I’m ready,” he murmured.

“Energizing,” Miles said. As he vanished Garak turned and glanced back toward the rear compartment of the shuttle, a curious move, but it was too late to ask him about it. Within ten seconds the tractor beam released the shuttle and Miles wasted no time in turning the ship around and heading back toward the esotrone field at full impulse, saying prayers of thanks all the way that both he and Julian would be back in Quark’s having a drink by the time this day was through.

Less than ten minutes later Julian stumbled out of the rear compartment, one hand clutching the side of his neck. “What the  _hell_  was that?” he demanded, wincing.

“Garak,” Miles deadpanned, his attention on his readouts, already mentally calculating the shield harmonic adjustments for the passage back through the energy field.

“Gar—” He looked at the viewscreen, saw only the pale liquid frow of the approaching esotrone field, and got wide-eyed yet again. “He knocked me out? Where is he?”

Miles turned around to look at his friend, the smart words suddenly dying on his tongue. Garak might have been a sidewinding bastard, but Julian had considered him a friend. After a moment he turned back to his console and confined his observations to a quiet: “I’m sorry, Julian.”

“He —” Disbelief turned to anger. “He didn’t! He...”

He came forward and slumped into the chair beside Miles, staring out the window, chewing his full lower lip. “ _Why?_ ” It might as well have been a curse, full of savage puzzlement and no small measure of pain.

Miles could understand the former: Garak was the last person you'd expect to throw away his life for someone else, much less a man he met once a week for lunch. In the awkward silence he decided to offer what comfort he could. “He told me to tell you he’d read that volume of poetry you gave him — the Victorian one. He particularly liked something by a fellow called Marston.”

More silence. Miles glanced up and found Julian looking at him intently. He shrugged. “He said you’d understand.”

“Marston?” Julian’s face suddenly went still. “Which poem?”

Miles frowned, recalling Garak’s words. “I’m not sure... I think it was called ‘Not Thou But I’.”

“Dear God.” The color drained from his caramel skin. For a few seconds he seemed to be fighting some inner battle; Miles watched him in growing perplexity, until a decision was clearly made. “Turn around.”

Now he gaped in utter disbelief. “I’m not going back to that hellhole for all the latinum in —”

“I’m not asking you to. I just need you to get us within range to beam me over.”

Miles glared. “And I’m sure as hell not taking you back there either!”

“I’m not leaving him there.” A strange light shone in Julian’s eyes. Miles had never seen its like there before. The younger man’s voice grew steely. “That’s an order, Chief. Get me within transporter range, then get yourself out of here.”

“Are you... have you gone insane?”

“No.” But he sounded as if he was thinking it over. “No... Miles, if it was Keiko back there, do you think I’d force you to leave her to that fate?”

Miles had thought that his disbelief had reached it maximum limit. He now discovered how wrong he’d been.  _”What?”_

“Take me back.” His beautiful hazel eyes were pleading now, but the cold shadow of command still lay in wait. “I’m giving you a direct order — and I’m begging you, as a friend. Garak may already be dead, but I have to try to save him, or at least be there for him.”

“He did it for you in the first place!”

 _“Thou hadst the peace and I the undying pain,”_  Julian whispered, almost to himself. Then he gave himself a little shake. “Maybe. And he may not be very pleased to see me. But there's no other choice. If you don’t take me back now, I’ll...”

The look in Julian’s eyes was enough. Miles had seen that expression before, on men and women after the Setlik III massacre — he didn’t know why it was sitting on his friend’s youthful and innocent face, but he recognized it and knew it would be pointless to try to argue. Something had shattered within him, and the damage wouldn’t be undone by anything less than returning.

“All right.” Reluctantly he started to lay in a course, turning the shuttlecraft around and sparing one last exasperated glance for his companion. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“I know.” Julian sank back in his chair like a puppet whose strings had been cut, staring out the front viewscreen at the hideous shape of the anomaly coming back into view. The blacklight glow of it cast haunted shadows across his sculpted features. He said nothing more until Miles’ console beeped, indicating that they were within the outer limits of transporter range under the circumstances. No tractor beam appeared to hold them and Miles was thankful for small mercies.

He watched as Julian got a phaser from the weapons locker, secured it at his waist, then moved to stand in the middle of the front compartment. “I’ll wait for you here,” Miles promised.

“Don’t.” He shook his head with almost childlike solemnity. “That’s an order too.”

“But if I don’t, there’ll be no one to pull your ass out of the fire.”

"Somebody has to get back to describe and chart this anomaly. If you don’t, someone else might run into it just like we have.” He gazed into Miles’ eyes with quiet sorrow. “Two of us will have been lost here today. Don’t make it three.”

“Julian —” It was pointless, but he had to make one last attempt. Julian shook his head, cutting him off.

“I can’t leave him behind. Tell Commander Sisko... tell him I’m sorry. And tell Jazdia I’m grateful for all she’s done for me.” One last smile graced his lips, kind and warm. “And thank you, Miles. For everything.” He straightened his slender back and nodded. “Energize.”

He disappeared in a shimmer of golden light.

Miles had waited almost eight hours before obeying that final order, hoping for a call that never came, until the subspace pocket threatened to collapse completely and he'd been forced to pull out or perish. By the time he cleared the esotrone field the anomaly had twisted away back to whatever hellish dimension had spawned it in the first place. The aliens were gone. Garak was gone.

And so was Julian.

*************************************

After he got back to the station and made his report, Miles had retired to his quarters, held his wife, kissed his little girl, and looked up Philip Bourke Marston in the station database. The man had indeed written a poem called “Not Thou But I” on Earth back in the late 1800s. It was short, but as soon as Miles read it everything clicked into sharper focus.

 _It must have been for one of us, my own,  
To drink this cup and eat this bitter bread.  
Had not my tears upon thy face been shed,  
Thy tears had dropped on mine; if I alone  
Did not walk now, thy spirit would have known  
My loneliness; and did my feet not tread  
This weary path and steep, thy feet had bled  
For mine, and thy mouth had for mine made moan:_

 _And so it comforts me, yea, not in vain,  
To think of thine eternity of sleep;  
To know thine eyes are tearless though mine weep:  
And when this cup's last bitterness I drain,  
One thought shall still its primal sweetness keep,--  
Thou hadst the peace and I the undying pain._

Words of fire, burning in eternal darkness. Words that Garak had intended Julian to remember only after he was safely back on the station. Words that would have left his friend with half a life and maybe too many regrets to go on living. Words that had been shared too soon, and now it was too late. 

Or perhaps not. Miles O’Brien could find comfort in that, and maybe they did too in the heart of Hell. Somehow it seemed fitting.

He nodded, and raised a glass to absent friends.

THE END


End file.
